RUSH: Ron Paul has recorded a commercial for us here, a special message. Yeah. Let's do that first, 'cause I think they're a little preemptive over there at the Paul camp.

(playing of Ron Paul spoof)

RUSH: Actually it's a commercial for Washington Republicans, not Ron Paul. Here is Ron Paul in the debate last night. This is Bret Baier. I thought the Fox moderators did a good job last night, too. I thought it was good. (interruption) Yeah, "fair and balanced," they were good. Bret Baier: "Congressman Paul, many Middle East experts now say that Iran may be less than one year away from getting a nuclear weapon. Now, judging from your past statements, even if you had solid intelligence that Iran, in fact, was going to get a nuclear weapon, President Paul would remove the US sanctions on Iran, including those added by the Obama administration. So to be clear: GOP nominee Ron Paul would be running left of President Obama on the issue of Iran?"

PAUL: You know what I really fear about what's happening here? It's another Iraq coming! It is war propaganda going on, and we're arguing... To me the greatest danger is that we will have a president that will overreact, and we will soon bomb Iran -- and -- and the sentiment is very mixed. We ought to really sit back and think and not jump the gun and believe that we are going to be attacked. That's how we got into that useless war in Iraq and lost so much in Iraq.

RUSH: Now, you may have astutely noticed that Ron Paul didn't answer the question. So Bret Baier, after the applause died down, said, "Congressman Paul, the question was based on the premise that you actually had solid intelligence as President Paul" that they got a nuke. We're not talking about being on the come. "I'm asking you about solid evidence they've got one, and yet you still at that point would pull back US sanctions -- and, again, as a GOP nominee, be running to the left of Barack Obama on this issue?"

PAUL: Yes. Eh, eh, all we're doing is promoting their desire to have it. They are surrounded! They have a desire -- and how do we treat people when they have a nuclear weapon? With a lot more respect. What did we do with Libya? We talked to them, we talked them out of their nuclear weapon and then we killed him. So it makes more sense to work with people and the whole thing that nuclear weapons are loaded over there. Pakistan. India. Israel has 300 of 'em! We have our ships there. We gotta get it in a proper context!

BAIER: All right.

PAUL: We don't need another war.

RUSH: (impression) "We don't need another war. I mean, we have enough! We ought to do what we did to Libya: Take their nuuuukes away and theeeen kill 'em." Baier said, "Congresswoman Bachmann," and this is her opening. She wanted to seize on this. "Congresswoman Bachmann, today's the official end of the US military operations in Iraq. There's real concern, as you know, about growing Iranian influence inside Iraq. Also the deputy prime minister there has expressed concerns about the country possibly slipping into a civil war. Are there any circumstances, as president, where you would send US troops back into Iraq?"

BACHMANN: With all due respect to Ron Paul, I think I have never heard a more dangerous answer for American security than the one that we just heard from Ron Paul. We know without a shadow of a doubt that Iran will take a nuclear weapon; they will use it to wipe our ally, Israel, off the face of the map; and they've stated they will use it against the United States of America. Look no further than the Iranian Constitution, which states unequivocally that their mission is to extend jihad across the world and eventually to set up a worldwide caliphate. We would be fools and knaves to ignore their purpose and their plan.

RUSH: Okay, Congressman Paul, she just called you a lunatic and an insaniac. What is your reply. (Well, I'm adding a little color there, but that's basically the implication.) What's your reply, Congressman Paul.

PAUL: To declare war on 1.2 billion Muslims and say all Muslims are the same, this is dangerous talk. Yeah, there are some radicals. But they don't come here to kill us because we're free and prosperous. Do they go to the Switzerland and Sweden?

RUSH: Yeah.

PAUL: I mean that's absurd! What is the whole world about the drone being in Iran and we're begging and pleading and how we're gonna start a war to get this drone back? Why were we flying a drone over Iran? Why do we have to bomb so many countries? You're trying to dramatize this that we have to go and treat Iran like we've treated Iraq and kill a million Iraqis and 8,000-some Americans have died since we've gone to war. You cannot solve these problems with war!

RUSH: Okay, now, I got a question in the e-mail. Somebody said, "Well, wait a minute. Didn't Ron Paul just admit that Libya had a nuclear program and so why is it so hard to believe Iran has one?" Ron Paul wants them to have a nuclear program. This is what people are missing. He says (paraphrased): "Look, when you have a nuclear bomb is when you're respected. Take a look at the way we dealt with the Soviets in the Cold War for 30 years as opposed to what we're doing with Iraq. We're talking about bombing Iraq off the face of the earth. We're talking about bombing a billion people! (Ron Paul impression) We never talked that way about the Russians because they had the same number of boooombs pointed at us! If you were Iraaaan you'd want a nuclear boooomb, too. Besides, the only reeeeason they want nuuuuclear weapons, because we're making 'em dooo it. It's our fault. If you were in Iraaaan, and you had to face these evil Americans, you'd want a bomb, tooooooo!" Anyway, this was the, say, highlight of the night for Congressman Paul. There are memorable moments in each debate. That little exchange was his.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Eileen in Newfield, New Jersey. You're next. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. I am so honored to get on with you.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: I have been trying to reach you for years. I adore you, and you have kept my sanity for the past three years.

RUSH: Well, thank you.

CALLER: I love you.

RUSH: Thank you very much. I've been losing mine, but I'm happy yours is intact.

CALLER: I absolutely adore you, and thank you so much for taking my call. Ron Paul is Obama on steroids when it comes to foreign policy and Iran. He is absolutely lying through his teeth when he says that Israelis are not worried about Iran. I have family there; I have cousins serving in the IDS. They know through intelligence that Iran is very close to a nuclear weapon, and somebody ought to tell him that in Tehran there are billboards all over the place advertising Israel's destruction.

RUSH: You don't...

CALLER: The only person who is going to be --

RUSH: You don't need to go to Iran to now that. All you need to do is listen to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He'll tell you that he's been saying so! Rick Santorum, I have to tell you, had a great way of putting this last night. He said (paraphrased), "Look, these guys -- the mullahs, the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads, the theocracy there -- their belief is that theirs is a nation of martyrdom. They believe their ultimate success is when they die for the cause!" It was countering Ron Paul and his argument that the Iranians are simply harmless people made dangerous by virtue of the way we exist, by virtue of the way we treat them, by virtue of the way we run around the world.

Ron Paul wants people to think if we were not us and there was a country in the world like America and we didn't live there, that we would all be on edge. (Ron Paul impression) "We'd beeee worried they're cooooming to take over our country or boooomb us or take our oooooil or whatever. All America wants to do is go to waaaaar," and his whole point is that we brought all this on ourselves. We brought 9/11 on; 9/11, we caused it. You're right when you say he's Obama on steroids when it comes to foreign policy. That is an excellent way to put it. Eileen, thanks much for the call. I appreciate it.